


Ghosts

by Villainyandgoodcheekbones



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Other, abuses of the modern convenience of hot water
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 17:51:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Villainyandgoodcheekbones/pseuds/Villainyandgoodcheekbones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were times when living with Combeferre was a  little like sharing an apartment  with a benevolent ghost, present in silences and sighs and half-drunk cups of coffee you were almost sure you didn’t put down yourself, in books and pair of glasses on the table that didn’t belong to you. Or as a voice, low in your ear, or drifting in from just around the corner, or pressure, hands against your shoulders and your hair, there then gone.</p><p>There were others when it was nothing like that at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghosts

There were times when living with Combeferre was a  little like sharing an apartment  with a benevolent ghost, present in silences and sighs and half-drunk cups of coffee you were almost _sure_ you didn’t put down yourself, in books and pair of glasses on the table that didn’t belong to you. Or as a voice, low in your ear, or drifting in from just around the corner, or pressure, hands against your shoulders and your hair, there then gone.

There were others when it was nothing like that at all.

The first time it happened, Combeferre had brushed cool fingers across the back of Enjolras’s neck, and murmured “I’m taking a shower now.” And Enjolras had nodded, and waved a hand abstractedly and went back to his valiant attempts to explain, in 140 character segments, why the government of the United States of America was a) not _actually_   a democracy, and b) wrong.

Almost twenty minutes later, the water was still running, and when he tried the door, it opened on Combeferre, hair wet, hanging over the edge of the tub with the water running down his back, reading.

“It’s been nearly twenty minutes.”

“Mmmm.” Combeferre  had hummed  in agreement, peering mildly up at him.

“The hot water’s almost gone.”

“That is completely untrue. I have five minutes left.”

Enjolras had sighed, had licked his lips, he had raised his eyebrows and drawled “And for those of us not inclined to cold showers?”

The water had gone beading down Combeferre’s nose, his jaw, his throat as he laid his book down and leaned back into the stream, and replied loftily “Those poor souls must surely suffer dreadfully. I pity them.”

“Do you.”

The water kept hissing down and Combeferre, eyes closed, had swallowed and said “Immensely.” And he stayed liked that before his shoulders settled, cracking one eye open to ask “Were you planning on…?”

“I _was._ ” It had looked like Combeferre smiled, like he was about to stay there until the water ran cold, selfish for once.

But he had started to get up, all the same, had started to leave, considerate, as ever. He looked…

Living with Comebferre was a little like living with a benevolent ghost. He didn’t ask for much. He didn’t ask for anything, really. So Enjolras had sighed, had raked his hand through his hair and said “Fine. Stay there, then.” and had smiled, just a little.

There was an “Are you sure?” softly, and Enjolras was, mostly.  It wasn’t anything, really, just anatomy. Nothing new. And there were only three minutes left. The steam clouding the mirror had it made it impossible to see his own reflection as Enjolras stripped off his shirt, his jeans. It was just anatomy, and Combeferre’s  expression asking “Are you sure?”

It began with a careful two inches of steam and space between them, Enjolras standing and Combeferre still seated, still reading. But then there had been the slow inexorable slide backwards, and his friend’s spine curled against Enjolras’s leg and his head bumped Enjolras’s thigh as Comebeferre leaned back again into the spray. And the first time he had smiled, sheepishly, and murmured an apology.

The second time, Enjolras had snorted and shook his head fondly.

The third, Combeferre craned his neck back and said “Fifteen seconds”, then clambered up and out of the bathroom, and the suddenly-cold water hit Enjolras’s back like a slap.

Then it was a weekend of freezing fog and red fingers that started out burning and ended up with no feeling in them at all, hours spent picketing and passing out signs, pamphlets, so when they got home, Combeferre just looked at him and said “I’m taking a shower.”

He nearly fell asleep there, his head against Enjolras’s knee.

They both fell asleep ten minutes after that, to the low drone of CNN saying nothing of any particular value.

Then it was end of finals, and after that it was the last day of freedom before the tests started, and after that, they both knew the timing of it perfectly; more often than not, it was Enjolras who called it, nudging Combeferre with his leg and saying “Twenty seconds” over the other’s wordless noise of complaint.

It was just anatomy. The average human head, the blood and bone and brain, averaged out at roughly 5 kilograms, to say nothing of the thoughts inside, or the feeling of a razor-fade brushing the skin of your thigh. The femur of an adult male 1.83 meters tall was approximately 48 centimeters long, to say nothing of how you knew exactly where along those 48 the crown of your head would rest when seated, or the low angle that made his leg look longer when you looked up. It was just that Combeferre’s eyes were bluer without his glasses, and he read Michael Crichton with his own commentary scribbled into the margins. Only that Enjolras had a line of pale golden freckles arcing over his hip and talked to himself, picking through rhetoric out loud.

It happened too infrequently to be a ritual, and too often to be an indulgence. It just happened. Sometimes it was like living with a ghost, coming home and not knowing if anyone was there, a cooling imprint of a body on the couch or half an orange you’re sure you didn’t eat, but no sign of him anywhere. Then from bathroom there was the sudden hiss and patter of water coming down and in his head, Enjolras could see Combeferre’s full-body flinch as the drops first hit, the jagged inhale.

And he would ease the door open, and watch as Combeferre looked up from his book. Ghosts had no skin for water to curl down in rivulets, no limbs to grow loose and pliant in the heat. They didn’t carefully change glasses for contacts before turning on the shower. Ghosts weren’t warm still-damp against your side afterward, weren’t dry and cutting while you both insulted the news, weren’t just a little taller than you, enough that when your head dropped to his shoulder, you could blame exhaustion and gravity, ghosts _weren’t_.

So it really wasn’t like living with one at all.


End file.
